Known game time-outs managing systems are useful for aiding a time-out official who is supervising a game event such as, for example, handball, basketball, water polo or other similar athletic games that allow time-out requests for each teams facing one another in a game.
These known systems generally provide a means for the time-out official to keep a record of statutory time-outs that have been requested and granted to each team during the game and, in some cases, a means to keep track of the elapsing time actively used by a team that has requested a time-out.
Typically, such systems are generally represented by a manual method wherein the time-out official observes the game, as well any one of the two coaches that may come with an official time-out request in the form of a carton or ticket that is deposited on the desk of the official or with hands face to the official, as is customary in internationally recognized handball, basketball, water polo, . . . game tournaments. If the team of the coach presenting the time-out request is in possession of the ball (handball, water polo) or not in possession of the ball (basketball, . . . ), depending on the rules of the sport discipline, the time-out is usually granted by the official. The time-out official may additionally keep track of the time-outs on record paper using a pen, and with the help of a hand chronometer, may signal to the teams the start and end of a granted time-out period.
With the advent of electronic scoreboard systems, such as the typically large game scoreboards mounted high on a pole or a wall of stadiums, arenas and school gyms around the world, more and more information concerning the time outs, such as the time and number of granted time-outs per team, and the likes, are made available to everyone on and around the game court. But essentially, this information is still generally registered manually.
While these known prior art systems and methods can generally fulfill the main objective of aiding a time-out official to keep track of statutory time-out requests granted to each team during an actively played game, they are also generally inefficient in executing this very same task.
For example, conflicts generally arise during an often occurring delay between the exact moment in time a coach asks for a time-out and the exact moment in time a time-out official grants the requested time-out to the coach, during which time the opponent team may take an opportunity to recover the ball and score a goal.
In view of the above, there is a need for an improved game time-outs management system and method.
An object of the present invention is to provide such a system and method.